Nobody these days makes as many consistently great and entertaining music videos these days as the Scissor Sisters. So here is my pick for best music vid of 2007 – “She’s My Man,” a groovy take on the famous Japanese “Matrix ping-pong” video that was all the rage some time back. Dig it.

Merle Haggard’s “Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down.”

And, boy, did it ever.

Hey kids, not to be outdone by Radiohead, MySpace and Pennywise announced today that they’re going to team up and offer the Cali punk outfit’s next record–in its entirety–as a free download for two weeks upon its release next March.

It could be a crazy gambit, this giving away music stuff. It also could be a shrewd marketing move by a band that realizes that it makes its money by getting butts in seats (or Converse in the pit, whatever) and their album sales are kinda icing on the cake. More records out there, more fans to like ya. More fans to like ya, more ticket sales/cover charges coming into the group’s till. It’s not like Mariah Carey or (insert chart-topping annoyance here), whose albums have so much marketing overhead–including big-budget videos–that giving away an album would bankrupt the label.

Pennywise’s Jim Lindberg is suddenly the most popular punk online.

Either way, keep the group’s MySpace bookmarked and keep tabs on this saga. You never know if some record-industry force will block this, or if the band will get cold feet. Or it turns out the free MP3s are sampled at crackly AM-radio quality. Or if some other legal snafu comes up to make this bold step a non-starter. Three months is a long time for hitches not to develop.

But in typical punk style, the band’s not afraid to go toe-to-toe with the old guard, the keepers of the purse strings–and this quote from the above-linked Pollstar piece sums it up perfectly:

“We know that this will piss off a lot of people in the music industry,” said Pennywise guitarist Fletcher Dragge. “And what do we say to that? ‘Who cares?’ We’ve been pissing people off for 18 years. Why stop now?”

Just a quick message here from me to everyone else out there to have a great holiday season. Much thanks to you for the readership.

JT

Thanks to this damned writer’s strike preventing Darlene Love from making her annual appearance on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” it just doesn’t seem like Christmas. So allow ESDMusic to do its part to help things along…

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Let’s keep this one simple, shall we? It’s a holiday, and we work during enough holidays as it is. Merry Christmas, everyone. Here’s to hoping that Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn will grace us with a new record sometime before we die.

Everything but the Girl – 25th December.mp3

Mark Twain reads R. Kelly’s “Real Talk.” I was in stitches. Hopefully you will be too while watching it.

Cougarman7 is a Jandek fan, but he made this hilarious “how-to” video to demonstrate how easy it is to play the Jandek classic “Point Judith.” Enjoy.

Since it’s the end of the year that means it’s time to dump out year-end lists! We’re doing that here at Bullz-Eye, but other fine sites are doing it as well. This next list from Cracked may not have just come out, but it’s worthy of your amusement. Therefore, here is Cracked’s list of The 20 Worst Album Titles of All Time.

“It’s Christmas Eve, babe / In the drunk tank.” Find me a better opening to a holiday song than that.

I usually use this segment to pimp new stuff, but ’tis the season, etc. (plus the labels don’t release anything of major importance after the middle of November), so I present to you my all time favorite Christmas song. Have we mentioned lately how awesome Kirsty MacColl was, and how much we miss her? We should just rename this site iheartkirstymaccoll.com. ‘Cause we do. Big whole bunches.